Ex-Homeland Security analyst swept up in huge child porn...

1of2Retired Homeland Security agent Richard Armendariz Sr., is lead out of the John Wood Federal Courthouse, on Tuesday, March 8, 2016, following a hearing on charges of child pornography.Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

A federal judge denied bond Tuesday to a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection analyst nabbed as part of a massive investigation into child pornography, whose users employed dark corners of the Internet to stay anonymous.

Richard Armendariz Sr. spent 42 years in the agency, now a component of the Homeland Security Department. He was stationed in Miami and in Colombia and had top-secret clearance, testimony at Tuesday’s hearing indicated.

Testimony revealed that Armendariz is related to the late Albert Armendariz Sr., a civil rights leader, federal immigration judge, state appellate judge and founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, for whom the new federal courthouse in El Paso is named. He died in 2007 in Brownsville.

Richard Armendariz, now 69, left homeland security five or six years ago and returned to San Antonio where his two sons live, testimony stated.

For much of his life, prosecutors argued, Armendariz kept secret his sexual attraction to children.

It unraveled last week when the FBI arrested him and he was publicly identified as one of nearly 215,000 people the FBI says it connected to a website it seized that made child porn available on what’s known as the Tor network.

The website, known as Playpen, was launched in August 2014 and allowed users to post images and videos of child porn.

The FBI used computer malware to gain control of it for two weeks in an effort to identify them before shutting it down early in March 2015.

“There is a part of him that is completely unknown to his family,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo. “This man has had a demonstrated sexual interest in prepubescent children for 36 years.”

The hearing renewed allegations that Armendariz molested a woman in El Paso.

The woman testified the molestations continued for several years, from when she was 11 years old through high school. She didn’t tell her family until she was 19 or 20, she said.

“It changed everything in my life,” the woman said. “It made it difficult to have a healthy sexual relationship. I was acting out. Trust is a big issue. … A lot of destructive behavior.”

The alleged molestation stopped after Armendariz was confronted by the woman’s father in the late 1980s, Armendariz’s lawyer, Jason Davis, told Primomo. Armendariz never was prosecuted.

In September, agents raided his home and seized his laptop and other computer-related equipment.

Richard Armendariz admitted he’d been accessing child porn for about three years and had visited the Playpen site, which is not accessible by traditional web searches. Access to the encrypted site required specialized software and the user’s knowledge of its exact Web address, court records said.

Playpen was “the largest child porn ring in existence” on the Tor network, Baker said.

The Tor service, designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the Internet, has allowed dissidents living under repressive regimes to communicate safely but also has made it easier for criminals to avoid detection.

The Playpen investigation was kept secret until news reports described it in November, including a San Antonio Express-News article about three men in the area being charged in connection with it.

Armendariz is the fifth defendant here to be charged, but the FBI had identified some 1,300 people nationwide as of January through their computers’ Internet protocol addresses, records show.

It ‘s unclear how many of those have been charged.

At its peak, Playpen had more than 117,000 posts and received an average of 11,000 unique visitors a week.

Baker said forensic examinations of the items seized from Armendariz turned up about 800 images and 140 videos of child porn.

Baker, who has spent several years investigating child exploitation crimes, testified the material was some of the worst he has seen and included the rape and torture of children.

Armendariz’s “favorite section is toddlers,” Thompson told Primomo. “Some of it involved horrible sexual abuse, some of it is described as mutilation.”

Defense lawyer Davis argued that Armendariz was forthcoming with the FBI during the September raid and admitted the child porn conduct.

Davis also argued that Armendariz was neither a flight risk, nor a danger to the community, and that there was no evidence his client had any other “hands-on” sexual activity with children, other than the allegations from more than 30 years ago.

Primomo agreed Armendariz was not a flight risk, but found him a danger.

“I’ve known agent Baker for a long time,” Primomo said. “For him to say this is the worst that he’s ever seen leaves a strong impression in my mind.”

Further, the judge said he couldn’t risk the possibility that Armendariz might act out with children if he were released on bond: “The evidence of the (molestation) is uncontested. There is no indication of remorse. There is no indication of any apologies,” Primomo said.

Guillermo has been with the Express-News for 10 years, and has covered federal court and its investigative agencies for most of that time. He has also covered immigration, minority affairs and legal affairs as part of the projects team here and for other print, TV and radio outlets. Guillermo has also worked in Central America, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona and California and his work has appeared in various publications, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Post, Newsday, Denver Post and the Albuquerque Journal.